A father and son who had never met were united after the boy’s mother used a government hotline to inquire about the dad, who she had met more than 50 years earlier and not seen since.
The Greater Kaohsiung resident decided that her son should meet his biological father and she wanted to meet the man again to reminisce about their romantic encounter.
The meeting, made possible with the help of the Greater Kaohsiung Government’s 1999 help hotline, was only recently revealed when Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) posted the story on Facebook.
It began when the woman, a 70-year-old grandmother, using the pseudonym Ahaushen (阿好嬸), called the hotline to seek assistance in her search.
She told staff members that when she was in her 20s, she met a man surnamed Chiu (邱), who was born to Taiwanese and Japanese parents.
She fell in love with him and, after a romantic encounter, she became pregnant.
“Due to the differences in our cultural backgrounds and other reasons, we could not get married. Regrettably, we were separated by fate soon after that,” Ahaushen said.
Ahaushen said she gave birth to a boy and decided to raise him by herself. Now, as an elderly matriarch of a family with many grandchildren, she said her dream was for her son to meet his real father.
The task was taken up by Wang Kuo-hsiao (王國孝), a police officer from the Sinsing District (新興) precinct in Greater Kaohsiung.
With the name given by the family as a clue, Wang went through many files and eventually found Chiu, who was living in Taoyuan County.
After Chiu’s family had been given an explanation regarding the search, they agreed that he would respond to Ahaushen’s enquiries. Chiu visited Greater Kaohsiung and finally got to meet his son.
Ahaushen said she had not harbored much hope of finding Chiu after more than half a century.
“The 1999 hotline helped to fulfill my dream,” she said with tears at the emotion of seeing Chiu again after so many years.
“My son is now more than 40 years of age. I really wanted to let him meet his father,” she added.
Chen said on Facebook that she was delighted with the outcome and thanked the city’s 1999 hotline staff for accomplishing the mission.
According to Wang, he went through the files of more than 20 people with the man’s name before he found the right one in September.
Because the two have families and did not want to create a disturbance by bringing up romantic encounters from their younger days, the two repeatedly requested police and hotline staff to keep their identities a secret, Wang said.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS